Nightmare Is Watching You

When I trained at the base, time tended to whip by in decades thanks to Double Speed Mod or diving into my Mental World — but out on the map, none of that applied.

Unless it was an Eok-kka event, that is!

Gyaaaaaah!

I scrambled far enough that the surrounding red dots vanished from the minimap, then dug a tunnel straight into the ground. My hair was thrashing every which way like it had sensed something ominous — ninety-eight percent chance this was a textbook Eok-kka event!

"Fuck me."

Of all the things that could have popped, it had to be Nightmare — one of the most infamous of this shit game's Twelve Eok-kkas.

A fifty-fifty shot between permanent injury or death. That was it. No other outcomes. The absolute worst kind of Eok-kka event imaginable. Fuck. I'd always known one of these would show up eventually!

An ominous black effect surged upward.

Normally this was the kind of bullshit Eok-kka that just ended with your character permanently crippled or dead — but I gritted my teeth, pulled out the Wheel, and hauled up my slaughter energy.

Blood-vivid red slaughter energy and the ominous black of Nightmare slammed into each other and started a contest of strength. Head-on, Nightmare predictably scattered the slaughter energy with overwhelming force. It had all the dignity of a proper Eok-kka event — but.

"Hah!"

With a shout, the Wheel hovering over my head like a halo ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠spun faster, and hundreds of chopsticks that had risen behind me like a radiant nimbus whirled along with it, driving the Wheel even harder.

Through the Tower in my Mental World, the Wheel drew up vast slaughter energy from the Seas of Slaughter and locked into a power struggle with Nightmare.

The fact that it was colliding instead of devouring or ignoring the slaughter energy meant Nightmare itself couldn't do a damn thing about my Seas of Slaughter — a snap judgment made at the instinct level. And sure enough, no matter how much Nightmare scattered and scattered, it couldn't punch through the slaughter energy pouring down on it, and just spun in place.

Just as I was thinking, Did I stop it? — as if mocking that very thought, as if warning me not to underestimate one of the Twelve Eok-kkas — every strand of hair that had sensed the danger stood on end at once, and in that split second of pure terror—

"You have got to be fucking kidding me."

Inside the tunnel, wrapped in that ominous black Nightmare, I blacked out and dropped straight into my Mental World.

What is Demonic Possession?

According ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to my help-desk fairy Cheon Nan-cho, it's a kind of wicked tribulation born from burrowing into a cultivator's heart — another self with power equal to your own realm. Lose your body to it and you become a demonic cultivator. One of the Heavenly Tribulations, apparently.

Hearing that explanation, I had exactly one thought.

Isn't that just dementia from living too long?

Even with a Heart Demon digging into me using Nightmare's power on top of everything — me, who couldn't outwardly express any emotion beyond [Greeting], [Anger], [Disappointment], [Gratitude], and [Rest].

I stared blankly at the Heart Demon, which looked for all the world like a grown-up version of me. Maybe because it was a Heart Demon — another me, completely different from the me cloaked in blood-ominous slaughter energy — a beautiful woman wreathed in mysterious blue spiritual energy sat atop pure white clouds above the Seas of Slaughter, looking down at me.

The Golden Core that had been illuminating the Seas of Slaughter descended to the Tower, and the sea of slaughter energy that had climbed up from beneath the Tower wrapped around the Golden Core, roughly sculpting a body similar to my compact physical form so I could move inside the Mental World.

"Fucking bullshit Eok-kka event."

"If you put it like that, I sound like an NPC."

"You're saying you're not an NPC?"

"Well, technically I am an NPC, but could you spare a thought for the NPC listening?"

This was my Mental World.

Its foundation was built on my innate talent, the Status Window, and the triple-layered Seas of Slaughter were so vast that even I — who'd filled that ocean with tens of thousands of hours of grinding in the Training Ground — couldn't properly draw and use all of it. I only ever pulled the slaughter energy that automatically spun off from its circulation.

So that NPC, my Heart Demon, was nothing special when you got down to it.

"So it's [Disappointment]."

"Yeah. Disappointment in myself for failing to become a proper cultivator. That's right."

Five emotional expressions, and a Heart Demon had simply latched onto one of them. And since the emotional expressions were the power of my innate talent — part of the Status Window — the Heart Demon, for all its grand title as a Heavenly Tribulation, tried to talk.

Having manifested through [Disappointment] inside the Mental World, it had realized it couldn't kill me or inflict permanent injury by its own power no matter what it did.

"You look pretty, since you're me all grown up."

"Right? Unlike you, who'll be stuck looking like a kid forever."

"I can just use a mod, you know?!"

"That's just an illusion anyway! Your actual body doesn't grow! Congratulations! You're stuck with that height and that tiny body for eternity!"

"Oh, come the fuck on!"

We traded pointless banter. I wanted to scream that I was dying to skip this, but [Disappointment] over there wanted it even more. Fine. I was just playing along with the time-wasting.

We went on like that for who knows how long inside the Mental World, swapping idle chatter — mostly trash-talking the game from my past life, the absurdity of this reality-patched world's events, ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠and freely inquiring after the well-being of the Xianxia Mode developer's parents — until, as if the time had come, [Disappointment] twisted her blank face with a sigh.

"Ah, for real."

"You did good."

"I'm [Disappointment], so I'm just leaving — but next time [Anger] shows up, you're gonna have to go all out."

"Yeah, but I still win inside the Mental World."

"True enough. Anyway, bye. I'm deleting my character from this shit game."

"Yeah, it's not like there'd be anyone left to play this game without you anyway."

"But you can't delete yours, can you?"

"Lolololol."

This fucking bitch, I swear.

True to form for an Eok-kka event, she scraped my nerves raw right to the end — then [Disappointment], without a shred of hesitation, chopped off her own head with her own hands, and her head and torso plopped straight into the Seas of Slaughter.

Just like me, really.

She'd stalled for long enough.

A permanent injury that would have slashed my Mental stat by fifty percent had been downgraded to a temporary one. [Disappointment] had done her job well enough. Of course she had — [Disappointment] was me, too.

Because this world was a reality-patched game.

Poke — my inner humanities all ganged up at once and stabbed my conscience. Fine, fine, I get it, I'll stop, so shut the fuck up already. They never quit with the bullshit, day or night.

I used Base Return to get back to the base and was mentally patting myself on the back for surviving yet another goddamn Eok-kka event when Cheon Nan-cho came over.

"What's with you? Why were you out wandering so long this time?"

"How long has it been?"

"About ten years?"

"Ah."

I opened the mission window — the season event was gone. Of course it was an Eok-kka event. I'd thought I'd gotten through it clean, but knocking me out long enough to make me miss the season event?!

Just in case, I scrolled way up through the system log, and sure enough — right around when I'd been chatting with [Disappointment] in the Mental World — there was a message that the door to the season event had opened! And then another saying it had closed in less than a day. Completely screwed.

"I was debating whether to hit the secret realm or not, but now there's no point."

"Wait, so you didn't go?"

"I got briefly sucked into a Heart Demon situation... What? Why are you looking at me like that."

"Hee-ah, you said there was no way a Heart Demon could get to you, so what's this Heart Demon talk?"

"A star forced a Heart Demon into me. The Heart Demon character-deleted — well, suicided — inside the Mental World, though."

"Hee-ah, I don't even want to know what kind of place your Mental World is."

"Want to know?"

"No."

That was way too firm.

"It's not that bad."

"A cultivator of equal realm and power gets crushed to death just by entering, and even when a star forces one in, the Heart Demon commits suicide. Sounds like a nightmare of a place."

Cheon Nan-cho's sword of truth and the humanities' sword of conscience stabbed my insides at the same time, and I couldn't even argue back, so I just turned away with a sulky look.

"Ah! Sect Master, you've returned!"

"Long time no see, Yeon-a. More importantly — what's with 'Sect Master'?"

"Dummy. You're the leader of this sect, remember? So you're the Sect Master."

"...Ah."

Apparently the base owner got called Sect Master. Fair enough — Cheon Nan-cho had been a field boss, higher realm than me when we first met, and even now her level was lower but her realm was about the same, so we were on a first-name basis. But Yeon-a was a junior who'd properly joined the sect, so of course Cheon Nan-cho had made her call me Sect Master.

"I'd rather you just call me Senior or Hee-ah!"

"Why?"

"Because 'Sect Master' feels way too stiff, doesn't it, Yeon-a?"

"Yes, Sect Mas— I mean, Senior!"

I ignored Cheon Nan-cho's exasperated sigh and used [Greeting] on Yeon-a. I'd come back to base, so I couldn't forget to hit that daily recommend button!